


this part of a fairytale

by wintervioleteye (hawkguyed)



Series: one out of many and all of them the same [11]
Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aaron Cross - Freeform, Aaron Cross is Clint Barton-verse, Abduction, Amnesia dreams, Crossover, Gen, Memory Loss, Multiple Universes, Project Outcome, clint barton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkguyed/pseuds/wintervioleteye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dreams come back. Sometimes, Aaron isn’t quite so sure that they’re just dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this part of a fairytale

**Author's Note:**

> I think this might be the last of the series for now? So much for not writing until the movie comes out haha. My entire characterization for Aaron might be off because I've had just... a few minutes to work with.

Aaron sprints across the rooftop. He’s already run out of ammunition and running out of surface area to escape. It had been a stupid mistake, a variable that he hadn’t accounted for but should have seen. 

He curses under his breath as the rooftop finally drops away, skidding to a halt. It’s an expanse of slum huts in front of him and two men with guns behind. 

It’s a wonder how he managed to get into this mess, how he had managed to miss this cleverly set trap. He never misses. 

The drop is a story high at most, if he hasn’t guessed wrong. It’s a leap of faith, and one that Aaron takes because there is no other option left available. He tumbles off the rooftop headfirst into a pile of discarded scrap at the end of the alley. He’s a little disorientated as he drags himself out of the pile, and his arm starts to throb with pain (probably from impacting something in the debris). 

That’s the reason Aaron manages to miss the third man who had circled around while his colleagues chased him. 

The hard, unforgiving metal of a gun impacts against the back of his skull and Aaron lets out a groan as he topples over, gun slipping from his grasp and fighting unsuccessfully against a darkness that quickly claims him. 

It’s a dark place, but the dreams are relentless. 

Aaron dreams of those people he’d seen on a fuzzy tv screen one day in Arizona, a woman with flame red hair and a man with a bland smile whose names he can’t completely remember. He dreams of a tall, tall building with nothing but sand for miles around and a train-yard that feels cold and dead.

He wakes once, to the sensation of being moved, but there’s a sharp sting at his elbow and the darkness reclaims him again despite his struggle to stay awake. 

_Drugs_ , is his last thought before sliding back under again. 

\--

The dreams come back. Sometimes, Aaron isn’t quite so sure that they’re just dreams. 

A carnival in Iowa that feels like it could be home. A mission in Russia that he doesn’t remember all the details of. An operation in New Mexico that had left him drenched by rain. Running through the streets of Laos and twisting an ankle.

Falling through a fan shaft in Dubai. 

It seems so _real_. 

Aaron jerks awake, the adrenaline of his dream still lingering in his system. Everything is still a little hazy from what he guesses is a drug cocktail, administered probably while in transport and his head hurts from where he’d been hit. His wrists have been forced into too-tight cuffs and bound tightly behind his back. 

It’s a tiny, cramped cell they’ve thrown him into, with drab grey walls and nothing else. No bed, no chains on the wall, nothing. It feels like he’s still dreaming, but that might just be the drugs in his system talking.

He barely has time to study the cell for possible escape routes when the cell door opens, a pair of black-clad soldiers marching in. They look trained, ex-military or trained combatants if Aaron had to assess, backed by someone with a ridiculously deep pocket. 

Aaron mentally goes over the list of people with the resources to do something as stupid as hire well-trained professionals to kidnap a CIA operative. Terrorist cell, extremist left-wing backers, some rich guy with a grudge to grind. Some crazy dude who doesn’t even know he’s CIA (he disregards that thought because those men who had been chasing him are definitely cut of the same cloth as the two who’d just stepped in). 

It’s not a particularly long list. 

It’s not an optimistic list either. 

Aaron shifts, sitting up to glare at the black-clad soldiers, a task complicated by the fact he doesn’t have the use of his hands. It’s impossible to tell their expressions under their masks, impossible to guess their intention, impossible when he’s still groggy from whatever it is in his blood. 

Gloved hands close over his arm in a vise-grip, manhandling Aaron to his feet and dragging him out of the room. The residual nausea makes the world briefly tilt and spin, but at least this time his mind is clearer. 

This is definitely not a dream.


End file.
